Te Aka Tauira
THISISSUE:
Cheering for Otago, stories from our graduates, rowing the Zambezi & more!
This month:
Eyes on the prize: From frisbee flop to disc golf guru
Rowing for good: Dodging hippos down the Zambezi
Audaciously impactful: Seeking a more sustainable way
Plus:
- Photos of our graduates - A roundup of Otago news
- A look at what’s coming up in September
S-U-C-C-E-S-S for Dynasty cheer squad
Kōrero by Laura Hewson
Otago’s Dynasty cheerleaders deserve a cheer squad of their own after taking out gold at a recent Australasian Majors event.
The 16-member team pipped reigning champs UCheer from Canterbury to win the New Zealand Majors University 1-2 Division in Auckland this month.
Otago University Cheerleading Club President and Dynasty team member Rebecca Stewart – who is in her fourth year of a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce – says the competition was fierce.
“Although we aren’t up against many teams, it is a very, very competitive division and each University sends their best athletes.
Dynasty is coached by Graham Versfeld and Mack-
enzie Fox through the Eclipse Cheerleading gym, the only cheer gym in Dunedin.
Rebecca says the biggest positive of being in a cheer team is the community aspect and in cheerleading, more than any other sport, you really need to rely on your teammates.
“The nature of the sport means you need to work closely in sync with the other athletes to achieve what you need to do.
“It requires a lot of trust and is very much one for all and all for one. Without the contributions from each person on the team we wouldn’t be able to have such a strong team.”
Full story
* For more information about the club, or to keep up with what they’re doing, check out their Insta or webpage
The Dynasty cheer squad hit new highs recently when they won gold at the New Zealand Majors in Auckland.
From frisbee flop to disc golf guru
Kōrero by Laura Hewson
Take some cheap frisbees, add a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, place in an isolated location for several days and you’ve got the perfect recipe for launching a lasting love of disc golf.
At least that’s how it began for first-year health science student Levi Stout, who is now the highest-rated disc golfer in New Zealand.
“I first discovered disc golf in 2017 on holiday in Te Anau. Our family bought some cheap frisbees and we gave it a try,” Levi says.
“It was a bit of fun at the start, but my brother and I quickly realised that it was also a competition for us that we sucked equally at.”
Once home, the brothers decided to play whenever and wherever they could and, a year later, a course was put in down the road from their house in Invercargill.
It’s been game on ever since.
“Over the years, I’ve worked my way up to become the highest-rated disc golfer in New Zealand since making the jump to play in Open divisions at the age of 15. I’m a two-time South Island Champ (and the reigning champ), as well as a three-time NZDG (New Zealand Disc Golf) Tour winner.
“Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to compete against some of the best players in the world, and my current goals are centred on how to take my sport to the international stage.”
Levi’s disc golf success also led to him being awarded one of Otago’s Performance Entrance Scholarships last year, which was a welcome financial boost and made him feel “seen” as an athlete of a lesser-known sport.
“The scholarship allowed me to work a bit less leading up to the start of the year, which freed up time for me to train, so I was able to compete to the best of my abilities during the summer swing of the NZDG Tour.”
This resulted in better tournament per-
formances, including his biggest win to date, which was the 2024 Bottle Lake Open in Christchurch, where Levi went head-to-head with two professional disc golfers from the United States.
“The scores were tight coming down the final stretch and I ended up winning the tournament by a single shot, which shows that every shot counts.”
Levi is a resident at Carrington College, which has become a home away from home for him, he says.
“It’s nice to have a small community of people around that I know, and the college always keeps us busy whether it’s through events, games, or tutorials.”
He’s also keeping his hand in with disc golf on a local level.
“The club I’m a part of is the Dunedin Disc Golf Club, which is amazing.
“Anyone can join, but I’d recommend that if you’re going to try disc golf, play casually with some mates for a while before joining a club.”
First-year health science student Levi Stout is the highest-rated disc golfer in New Zealand after working hard to master the sport.
Waste a winning topic
Sorting through food waste bins at Otago’s 14 colleges has won Human Nutrition student Briar Mills the University’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Master competition this year.
“It wasn’t as disgusting as you might initially think because I was doing it on the day the food waste was generated, which was a lot better than if it was a few days old and starting to get smelly,” Briar says.
“There were a few icky moments but it was pretty good. I’d put on a podcast or the radio and just sort away.”
Briar’s research is the first in Aotearoa New Zealand to examine college food waste in such depth, says her co-supervisor and Director of the Food Waste Innovation Research Theme, Professor Miranda Mirosa.
This makes Briar’s work “invaluable in helping us understand our country’s overall food waste profile and impact”, Miranda says.
Collecting detailed and accurate data is essential for creating effective plans to reduce waste and promote sustainable resource use.
Briar’s co-supervisor and Human Nutrition Professor Sheila Skeaff says Briar was “amazing”.
“She is a food waste champion in every way; she showed that collecting and sorting through food waste was fun science and helps the planet.”
Briar discovered that about 160 tonnes of food is wasted across the colleges in a year – an average of 170 grams per student per day – and half of it comes from students’ plates.
Her research created baseline measurements for how much food is wasted and what types, so Otago can introduce the best practice approach to reducing it – Target, Measure, Act.
Otago is driving down food waste as part of its goal to reduce the total waste produced, and to shift to 50 per cent of all waste being diverted
from landfill, so there needed to be a baseline measure of existing food waste.
Briar spent three days at each college, auditing waste from food preparation, the servery and plates, at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
She also held focus groups with staff and students at three colleges to discuss their thoughts on food waste. Their strong consensus is it should not go to landfill, but to compost or pigs.
“However, it’s better to produce less waste in the first place, than think of more sustainable ways to dispose of it,” Briar says.
Because food waste is a global problem, Briar hopes people see efforts to reduce food waste in colleges as applicable to their lives at study, work, and home too.
The Three Minute Thesis competition involves thesis Master and Doctoral students presenting their research in no more than three minutes, with only one static slide, to an audience – with the aim of making the subject easily understood by non-specialists.
Full story
Human Nutrition student Briar Mills in action at the University’s Three Minute Thesis competition this year.
Rowing for good
Kōrero by Claire Finlayson
While most of his Otago peers were doing nothing more challenging over winter than surviving on two-minute noodles, Jack Caldwell was suffering heatstroke, drinking water from a filth-rich African river, and playing dodgems with hippos and crocodiles.
Jack took time out from his Bachelor of Arts and Commerce studies in July to go on the adventure of a lifetime: rowing 900km down the jeopardy-laden waters of the Zambezi River and Lake Cahora Bassa to help raise money for clean water charities in Central Africa.
He won a coveted spot on the 2024 Row Zambezi Sculling Club squad by virtue of a timely check-in with his former rowing coach and chaplain from Hamilton’s St Paul’s Collegiate School, the Reverend James Stephenson (Stevo).
Jack had already spent a month in Africa, aged 17,
to help Stevo coach Zambian youth at the Kansanshi Rowing Club and volunteer at the Emmanuel Orphanage in Solwezi. It was a momentous experience that helped set his humanitarian compass.
“It was one of the most sobering experiences ever. The orphanage was a little house with 60 kids and only one person running it. We turned up with a bunch of footballs, stationery and lollies and taught them how to play rugby for a few hours each morning before going inside and doing some basic English teaching.”
Back in New Zealand, Jack was mortified to learn that the landlord of that too-squished house was upping the rent, forcing the orphanage to move to a rural area without access to markets.
“So, I made this little video of my time there and raised NZ$2000. I sent that over to Stevo and he bought them a water pump, solar panel, stationery, bikes and basic stuff to grow crops. I still call the head of the orphanage to this day.”
Otago tauira Jack Caldwell sporting the kind of hard-won relief that comes from surviving the Zambezi intact.
With that sort of empathy on show, it’s little wonder Stevo was keen to bring Jack back to Africa. This time, he joined 16 rowers from eight countries and a 14-strong support crew to row an average of 45km a day for nine days. At 22 years of age, he was the youngest non-African participant.
This being the fourth rowing expedition of its kind, the organisational team’s risk-planning was meticulous. There was even a rifle-clutching ranger stationed on the lead boat ready to alert the rowers to any imminent threats.
Happily, none of Jack’s pre-expedition daydreams about becoming a tasty crocodile snack came to fruition. But for a Kiwi used to the tame wildlife of Hamilton, it was pretty confronting.
“The ranger would radio in and tell us to move to the left to navigate around a pod of hippos. But with the crocs, as soon as they hear or see a boat they just go under the water. On one session, the lead boat saw about 20. I’m glad that I only saw three, but I knew they were under there.”
His legs were under there at times, too.
“Mozambique was in drought, so the support boats were always getting beached on the sand banks. I never would have thought I’d be jumping out into crocodile-filled waters to push the boats a couple of times every hour.”
brown. But when we squeezed it into our water bottles it’d be crystal clear – just from the little filters. It was pretty amazing.”
Sly-eyed crocs, dodgy tums and dirty water were grist to the adventure mill for Jack, though.
“ The ranger would radio in and tell us to move to the left to navigate around a pod of hippos. But with the crocs, as soon as they hear or see a boat they just go under the water. ”
Then there was the merciless 37-degree heat.
“We got very ill with heatstroke – we were vomiting and had diarrhea in the first two days. We had to start waking up at 5am to get a few hours in before the heat came.”
The water issues they were raising money for were everywhere evident. Fresh water was so scarce that the rowers were forced to drink from the Zambezi.
“When we scooped water out of the river it was
“You’d think morale would be really low but everyone was in such high spirits. You get a lot closer to people when you’re at your worst. It was just awesome.”
The Row Zambezi mission raised a whopping £100,000 for freshwater charities. Jack gathered an additional NZ$8,500 via his Givealittle page (some of which he used to cover expedition costs).
“I’d be keen to do more of these missions but with a community engagement focus. I have a graduate role with a commercial real estate firm in Brisbane next year, but I’d love to get involved with NGOs down the track.”
For now, though, it’s back to the less perilous surrounds of campus, where the only things chomping at his heels are a few friendly economics and geography assignments (risk management: nil).
One of the crocs, pretending to look disinterested. Jack said that on one leg of the expedition, the rowers passed crocodile breeding grounds where 20,000 or so eggs are laid each year. He’s glad he missed that section.
AUG GRAD PICS
Cause for celebration
Kōrero by Laura Hewson
The last time Soji Chambers’ family visited him all together at Otago, it was to help him settle into his college in first year.
Four years later, they made the trip south from Tauranga to watch him walk across the stage as he graduated with a Bachelor of Science majoring in psychology with a minor in sociology.
“My mum didn’t say much to me when she dropped me in Dunedin in first year but, looking back, I think she was trying not to cry,” Soji says.
It helped that they’d heard good things about the opportunities for Pacific students here, he says.
“One of my high school teachers was an alumnus of Otago and as a Fijian student he’d had a great experience, so my parents felt reassured by his words and were happy for me to come here.”
Soji’s father is Fijian from the village of Sanasana, Nadroga with maternal links to Vanuavatu, Lau and his mother is Fijian-Indian from Vatu-o-lalai, Nadroga with maternal links to Veiseisei, Ba.
Soji was awarded one of Otago’s Pacific People’s Entrance Scholarships in year 13 because of his involvement in cultural activities and mentoring at Tauranga Boys’ College.
While Soji initially started studying health sciences, he switched to psychology in his second year.
“I’ve always wanted to know why people do what they do both individually and also on a macro scale, like populations of people in the world. Psychology just explains so much.”
Soji has continued to help others during his time at Otago. He’s the general executive of the Science Student Pacific Island Association (SSPIA) and a Mana Toa mentor working under the Division of Science.
“At SSPIA our main purpose is to support the academic success and holistic wellbeing of students.
“As a Mana Toa mentor we engage with Pacific Island boys from Oamaru to encourage them to pursue tertiary education in the sciences.”
Soji has just started his postgraduate degree, a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Psychology. His dissertation will be a strengths-based study looking at the acculturation strategies of Fijian migrants in New Zealand.
“Most Pacific studies are very deficit focused. There’s a lot of negative statistics out there, which are important and obviously you need to know the issues, but I think sometimes a lot of great stuff can come out of strength-based research.”
After his studies, he’d like to pursue a career in an industry that lacks Pacific representation, possibly in health, policy or consultancy, he says.
Psychology student Soji Chambers will get to celebrate both his birthday and graduation with his family this weekend.
Audaciously impactful
Florals and weddings go hand in hand, but many happy couples don’t realise microplastics play a key role on their special day.
The culprit? Blocks of non-biodegradable foam that florists use to support floral arrangements.
For entrepreneurship graduate, sustainability advocate, and self-confessed wedding aficionado Fasya Amasani Setiawan, this was the perfect challenge to take on for her Masters’ project, which looked at sustainable alternatives to the foam and whether the market would be open to adopting alternatives.
“Affordability is important, as sustainable options may require more capital and this makes a big difference for businesses,” Fasya says.
Entrepreneurship is not new for Fasya, who used her architecture background and passion for weddings to start a sustainable wedding decorations business with friends back home.
“We were trying to have a positive impact on the environment, but it was hard to make it viable because of the cost.”
This spurred her to explore options to study business, she says.
“I was awarded the targeted entrepreneurship LPDP scholarship for postgraduate study by the Indonesian Government.
“I chose the Otago Business School (OBS) to do my degree because they offered a paper in sustainable entrepreneurship, which aligned well with my goals.”
This is where she was introduced to Startup Dunedin and the Audacious programme, which is a programme for students to build their entrepreneurial skills.
“Audacious was the test ground for my idea of sustainable floristry and it gave me a head start on my Masters’ project.”
Fasya’s hard work paid off and she was presented with the Audacious Impact Award at the 2023 Audacious Showcase.
Full story
*Find out more about a Masters (MBus) in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Fasya Amasani Setiawan’s love for flowers and weddings led her to explore sustainable floristry for her Masters’ project.
Kōrero by Sandra French
There’s more where that came from:
Building connections through taonga
Pacific postgraduate students and members of the Kūki ‘Āirani (Cook Islands) community came together in August to share stories and kai as they viewed the taonga of their ancestors.
The ‘Piri’anga Toto: Blood Connections Through Objects’ event was held at Tūhura Otago Museum during Cook Islands Language Week to form connections between the University, the Museum and Dunedin’s Pacific communities.
Pacific Postgraduate Coordinator at the Graduate Research School and PhD student Inano Tapiro-Walter says her hope is that attendees left with a deeper understanding of the significance of these cultural objects.
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Thesis winner enjoys waves of success
Graduating with a PhD in mathematics and statistics was the trifecta for Dr Ben Wilks; he was granted Exceptional Thesis status for his thesis on wave energy earlier in the year and then secured his dream job in Newcastle, Australia.
Ben was granted Exceptional Thesis status for his thesis Topics in resonant wave scattering: From rainbow reflection of water waves to time-domain scattering by acoustic resonators, which looked at wave energy conversion.
“In the ocean, there are waves and they carry energy. We want to be able to take this energy and somehow convert it to usable energy such as electricity.”
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‘Career break paradox’ talk wins 3MT final
For some people, it may well have been the ‘worst year of their life’, but it seems they’re still in favour of the concept of a career break.
Doctoral candidate Patrick Mazzocco won Otago’s 3MT® grand final competition recently with his speech ‘The Career Break Paradox’.
Patrick, who is halfway through his PhD with the Higher Education Development Centre, says for many people the idea of taking a break is terrifying.
“Many of my participants described growing up never questioning their career trajectories. They were expected to go to a reputable university, get a degree, get a job, climb the ladder ... then retire.”
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Snow on the uni & top tips for writing comp
This month it snowed fleetingly and we caught it.
We also shared some top tips from Otago’s writing Competition Judge and 2024 Robert Burns Fellow Mikaela Nyman...
*Whatever your subject or original idea is, make sure you see it through to the very end. Does the text hang together? Does it make sense?
*Pay attention to the overarching narrative arc as well as each paragraph and sentence. Avoid clichés and strive to come up with original turns of phrase.
*Read your work out loud, listen to the rhythm, the music. If you stumble, you might need to revise it.
More about the comp WHAT’S UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA
What’s on in September?
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